A different keyboard problem in 15.5.5

[hanness_rdu]

I see lots of posts about caps lock not working in 15.5.5 but I'm experiencing a different problem with the keyboard:

When an existing Windows guest is booted, I can type within that guest, However, if I try to install a new Windows guest OS, the very first thing that you will see from Windows setup is that it will ask you to press any key to boot from the DVD. No matter what key(s) I press, Windows see no response and that operation times out.

I tried this on 2 different systems, a desktop and a laptop, with the same results.

Test scenario:

Host System: Windows 10 Pro x64 2004, final released version, upgraded from Win 10 1909.

VMware 15.5.5 initially installed as upgrade to 15.5.2 but later tried uninswtalling and reinstalling from scratch with same results.

Guest OS: Also Win 10 Pro 2004, x64

Two very different systems. One is a 4th gen i7 desktop with 32GB RAM, the other is an HP laptop with a 7th gen i7 and 32GB RAM.

Installations tried both with and without Hyper-V enabled.

Anyone else encounter this symptom, and, more importantly, any known workarounds? For now I have simply reverted back to 15.5.2.

[banackm]

We're aware of this issue internally and are looking into it.

You can try the following work-around config option and let us know if it helps:

mks.win32.useInjectedMagic=FALS

[banackm · Accepted solution]

Er sorry, copy/paste error, that should be:

mks.win32.useInjectedMagic=FALSE

[hanness_rdu]

Thanks for the advice. That did indeed work for me.

Are there any negative repercussions to the use of that workaround that I should be aware of?

[banackm]

The option reverts portions of the keyboard handling to the behavior on Workstation 15.5.2, so there shouldn't be any downsides if 15.5.2 was working for you correctly.

[badstuff_butch]

I had the same problem and I managed to solve it before I took a look into this forum. I just wanted to share my experience.

When I added a new network adapter in the setup of the vm before an operating system is installed the vm ignores any inputs of my keyboard.

I just needed to delete all networkadapters. After it, the vm recognizes the keyboard inputs again and i was able to press a key and start the setup of the os